Editorial: What Happened to the ACT?
April 7, 2016
Colorado is one of two states (the other being Illinois) to require juniors to take a college entrance examination. In a few weeks, Manitou Springs High School 11th graders will be partaking in the American College Test (ACT). They have been preparing themselves with prep courses, study groups and Pre-ACT tests taken in earlier years of high school. Meanwhile, 10th graders will be taking the Pre-Scholastic Aptitude Test (PSAT). This is a significant change compared to previous years. This is a result of Colorado high schools switching to requiring 11th graders to take the SAT as opposed to the ACT.
Many describe the ACT as a test that measures a students achievement test, evaluating what a student has learned in school. The SAT is seen as an aptitude test, testing a student’s abilities concerning testing and reasoning. The ACT is strict knowledge, more akin to memorization, and the SAT is a reasoning test. The SAT tends to apply creative solutions to problems, while the ACT is typically straightforward. The SAT is more geared towards students who are the smart students that don’t test well, while the ACT is more geared towards a student who is good with remembering facts and tests well.
The ACT is structured with four required tests (Math, Reading, English, and Science), with an optional writing portion. The Math portion tests Arithmetic, Algebra I & II, Geometry and Trigonometry. the SAT is three tests (Math, Reading, Writing and Language) as well as an optional essay. The most significant difference between the SAT and the ACT is the scoring. The ACT is scored on a scale of 1-36, with the Colorado state average being 20.1. The SAT is three tests (Math, Reading, Writing and Language). The SAT Math exam focuses on Arithmetic, Algebra I & II, Geometry, Trigonometry and Data Analysis. Meanwhile, the SAT is scored on a scale of 400-1600. The College Board has recently changed the scoring of the SAT from 600-2400, with the state average being 1736.
Colorado has been testing 11th graders since 2001. Many school officials are resistant to the change to the SAT, since the ACT has offered a gauge to evaluate academic performance (among the other standardized tests that serve that exact purpose).
Nearly all colleges within the US accept results from both the ACT and SAT. As a result, about 55,000 public school students took the ACT last spring, while only about 6,500 students took the SAT. Because of this fact, many are worried that Colorado will be at a disadvantage. Fortunately, the SAT is restructuring the tests that will be administered to the incoming junior class. The SAT is scored on a scale of 400-1600. The College Board has recently changed the scoring of the SAT from 600-2400, with the state average being 1736. The state average is well above the national average of 1500, but many attribute this to the fact that the SAT is optional. This results in high achieving students choosing to take both tests, and the SAT average goes well above the national average.
The redesigned test causes some anxiety among educators, as every student, teacher, and school will be going into the SAT blindly. According to the College Board “it’s highly relevant to your future success. The new test is more focused on the skills and knowledge at the heart of education.”. The SAT has embraced the new approach to education, where memorization of facts, words, and dates are irrelevant. The restructured test will evaluate the subjects a student should have learned in high school, as well as what they need to know to be successful in college.
The Colorado Department of Education cites their decision to the alignment of the PSAT to the high school Common Core Math and English standards. Additionally, The College Board offers more insightful results, as well as offering opportunities for students to make the necessary connections for a successful future. Additionally, the restructured test will no longer penalize students for guessing instead of omitting the question. Most students will not suffer from this decision, for in the situations in which students take both the SAT and the ACT, they typically perform at the same level on both tests.
Tyler Jungbauer • Apr 8, 2016 at 7:02 pm
“The restructured test will evaluate the subjects a student should have learned in high school, as well as what they need to know to be successful in college.” I think that it’s interesting the word “success” is used so heavily in this editorial, especially in relation to education. For example, the sentence above. As I think most people who read my comments on the Prospector (if any), I do not have the most optimistic attitude toward education. Thus, the things that I have to say here may not be the most empathetic toward education, whatever this really is.
The sentence above is interesting, because it draws attention to one of the primary reasons (if not THE primary reason) that inspire, or perhaps force, students into college attendance. It is the factor of success; we all want success in life, in our ways. No matter what this success really boils down to—money, a good family, a nice house, lots of vacation time, the pursuit of knowledge or happiness—it really all applies to what we deem the overall, big picturesque “meaning” behind why we live life continuously. We don’t go to school, we don’t wake up everyday tired and hungry and needing coffee, we don’t do these things just because we can—at least most of us don’t—and I feel that if we were given the choice of attending school or doing something other than public education, we’d probably choose the former over the latter. But then there are those who wouldn’t, and who really do find success in public schooling. There is nothing wrong with this at all, even I must admit. But, again, it boils down to the meaning behind why we continue to go to school and live our lives the ways in which we do.
Stemming from this line of thinking, then, I have to make my big point here. This article has so heavily to do with that proverbial word “success,” and yet it speaks only of one kind of success: the success that’s put there in front of us, like a dish in front of a dog, to be scooped into our mouths by our hungry paws that don’t even wait to taste or savor the flavors of the meat. We just scarf it down, because that’s all we can do in the time that we have. So we don’t bother to question WHY we’re eating lamb instead of beef, or why we’re going to school and getting grades, we just do it, because that’s what we do. But so do robots, made in assembly lines not even peopled by real people at all, and they do as they’re told by their superiors. Essentially, if we line up the deductive reasoning here—If the existing thing does as it’s told, without personal thought, then it’s a robot; We don’t provide our own personal thought to public education: therefore, we are robots—then we find that we do the same thing, essentially, as steel-carbon frames without brains to think. But it’s even worse, because we are living, being, existing human beings, with minds of our own, and yet we’re forced into listening to those quiet truths spoken of in the dim light of conspiracy, behind shades, where the people behind all of this stuff do their thing. And, thus, this idea of success placed here is not at all success; it’s a kind of success—but so is not falling off a cliff when sitting at table in the school. Because, technically, you’re not falling off a cliff—nor are you even close to a cliff, though. This is a ridiculous thought, most definitely; but so is the rest of the ersatz we’re fed like dogs at the dish.
Before I find myself descending into thoughtless rant, I’m going to make my last point. This article speaks so heavily of success: “what they need to know to be successful in college.” I find it interesting that the only notion of success suggested here relates entirely to that which is found “in college,” nowadays. Lots of people say that they get good grades to get into college. Why do they go to college? To make good money. Why do they make good money? So that they can more easily acquire all those things that bring happiness and joy ot them, and they can live a good life while they can. Why lead a good life in the first place? So that we don’t die sad. But if death is always imminent—and, technically, I suppose it is—then we should expect that we’d might as well spend our time doing things that bring us joy and happiness, those little things tha make all of our lives worth it. As the poet Robert Herrick once remarked:
“GATHER ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.
…
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime, 15
You may for ever tarry.”
Thus, we must better identify what our own personal success is, because this is what matters the most. I think that success is deemed according to happiness, but other people disagree with me—heck, I would claim that money brings you about as much happiness as dirt in a bowl of cereal, but there exist those who won’t agree with me no matter the circumstance. Nonetheless, this is so much more important than being told what success is, and conforming to that meager idea. This is no different than what religion has done to so many people, what any institution that ever existed has done before, what any tyrannical ruler has done before. This is, sadly, no different than Stalin coercing his people into singing prayers to his name or naming objects after him, praising him as if he were indeed God, and yet I feel that there existed a number of people who didn’t want to shout out his name when they attended church or whatever.
So before we descend down this lane into the darkness, let me just say one last thing: do not let anyone force you into thinking that what you think isn’t important. This is never true. Change and difference can be made, and, indeed, they’ve been made before, many a time. But firstly there must exist the person to make the change, because without them there exists no such possibility of change. So let us be the change, let us decide to make the difference, and do not let us sink deeper into the fathoms of mud into which we’ve already sunk so deeply.
Kelly Hexom • Apr 8, 2016 at 6:51 pm
In what year were the scores changed for the SAT? This is important information for this year’s Juniors.
Lily Reavis • Apr 11, 2016 at 1:23 pm
Hi, Kelly. The scores changed for the SAT this year, and this is the first year that the new SAT will be administered.